We've been in the woods and off the grid for the past several days, only to return to find that Rep. Rush Holt's (D-NJ) hugely flawed Election Reform bill, HR 811, is said again to finally be coming up for a vote in the U.S. House this week. The claim of an imminent vote on the House floor has been made many times in the past by Holt and his supporters, though this time it's now actually on the schedule of the House Rules Committee for a vote tomorrow on an amendment, as described yesterday by VotersUnite.org's John Gideon, that would move the bill forward even without a mandate that it actually be funded. As well, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) has the bill penciled onto his full House Floor calendar to come up as part of business as early as tomorrow, even though it's currently listed there as "Subject to a Rule" --- presumably in reference to whatever happens in the Rules Committee.

As usual, the scheduling, whether real or imagined, as it has been in the past, brings another surge of misinformation from the bill's powerful supporters. Leading the way this time around is MoveOn.org, which sent out an email to members over the weekend asking if it should support the latest "compromise" version of the bill as it's been hammered out, reportedly, between Hoyer and Holt and secretly brokered behind closed doors by longtime HR811 supporters People for the American Way (PFAW).

While MoveOn is asking members if it should support the bill, the mailing --- more accurately described as a "push poll" --- shows MoveOn's hand by misrepresenting quite a bit of what the bill actually does and doesn't do. So we'd be surprised if its members came out as anything but in favor of supporting the bill. But more on that deceptive mailer in a moment, along with some news on Holt himself reportedly now distancing himself from aspects of his very own bill!...

With all of that in mind --- (along with a FULL DISCLOSURE reminder that we were invited to participate in the drafting of the legislation prior to its introduction in this Congress) --- we've long been reporting that the Holt Bill was flawed from the get-go in that it continues to allow for hackable, unsecured, unverifiable Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) voting machines along with a number of other problems.

Instead of banning DREs, HR 811 institutionalizes them by allowing their continued use as long as they include a so-called "paper trail" which, as many studies have found, do little if anything to ensure the accuracy or integrity of an election run on such systems. One such study, from NYU's Brennan Center for Justice, described how an election held on a DRE with paper trails could be easily hacked so that both the DRE and the paper trail matched perfectly --- even though the DRE had been hacked to flip the election results. Nonetheless, and remarkably so, the Brennan Center is still apparently supporting this flawed bill which has become even worse through the amendment process in committee and via the PFAW compromise.

Mary Ann Gould, host of the weekly radio program Voice of the Voters, now aptly describes the bill as "Microsoft 811," since the software behemoth brought its considerable lobbying powers to bear and forced Democratic legislators, behind closed doors, to remove all of the public disclosure of source code once called for when the bill was originally introduced. That complete disclosure of source code was one of the bill's strong points, but that provision has now been watered down to the point where even Holt recently admitted at a public event, according to Gould's report, that "It's no longer my bill...Unfortunately, the committee that made this change heard from Microsoft. They heard that voice."

So with Holt himself publicly disavowing elements of the bill, nonetheless he continues to move forward with it, even if he has to lie about in order to do so, as The BRAD BLOG reported several weeks ago.

But Holt is not the only one apparently willing to deceive and/or mislead voters about this crucial bill. As mentioned, with the legislation perhaps finally coming up for a vote on the House floor, MoveOn.org, which had been a strong supporter of the bill in its previous versions, has again put out a very deceptive mailing to members over the weekend. The mailer portends to ask members if the Democratic-advocacy organization should support the legislation in its current form. Unfortunately, the mailing misframes the legislation, as Holt would like it, by referring to it as a "paper ballots bill," even though HR 811 doesn't actually mandate paper ballots, but rather uncounted paper trails only.

Hommel's point-by-point rebuttal to MoveOn's unfortunate mailer follows in full below. We've asked MoveOn's point man on this legislation, Noah Winer, for a response to this rebuttal and will update this article appropriately if we should hear back from him. Hommel's responses to MoveOn's letter are interspersed in italics...

Dear MoveOn member,

With time running out to secure our voting machines before the 2008 election, Democratic leaders have negotiated a compromise version of Rep. Rush Holt's paper ballots bill, H.R. 811.

LIE—HR811 is not a “paper ballots” bill, it merely uses the term “paper ballot” as the new name for “paper trail.” What’s the difference? A tiny percentage of paper trails will be “re-counted” many days after the election and the announcement of the winner.

It's not ideal, but we need to decide if we'll support it anyway. On the one hand, the compromise is imperfect. On the other, it's our only chance to make significant national progress before the 2008 election.

LIE—The real question is: Is it “progress” to continue to use electronic voting machines after all the scandals and all we know about them? Or is it business and profits as usual?

*Read more about the compromise below, then let us know if you think MoveOn should support the current version of the Holt bill:

LIE—Who compromised? The lobbyists who determined the current content of this bill were primarily Microsoft and the voting machine vendors. Grassroots citizens were shut out of the process of revision this year after we worked in 2003-2006 to gather sponsors for the bill’s previous versions.

The Holt paper ballots bill has met with strong concern from many disability rights groups because electronic voting machines offered many people with disabilities their first opportunity ever to vote independently. Some technology does exist to make paper ballots accessible, but not all disability groups feel it's adequate.

LIE—Grassroots disability rights activists who are not funded who have tried the accessible paper ballot marking devices typically prefer them. The California Top-to-Bottom Review found that no DREs in their state were accessible. Please follow the money when you look at who is supporting DREs, regardless whether their arguments concern accessibility or any other reason.

The compromise Holt bill requires all electronic voting machines to include paper trails by 2008, but it allows the use of cash register-style printers that are not great for reliable voter-verification. Some counties will also be allowed to buy new electronic voting machines.

TRUTH—Paper trails are not as reliable as voter-marked paper ballots to record the voters' true intent, and are worthless to determine election outcomes, since it is very rare for election outcomes to be changed regardless of what happens after election night.

By 2012, the bill would ban these more error-prone paper trails and require durable paper ballots instead. The bill would not ban electronic voting machines altogether, but it would make the durable paper ballots the vote of record and would require manual audits to ensure accurate counts.

LIE—The “durable paper ballots” referred to here are paper trails printed on better paper. They still won’t be counted for 90-97% of election tallies. The bill would not ban electronic voting machines at all. The “vote of record” is only for 3-10% RECOUNTS.

The compromise bill is supported by Common Cause, the Brennan Center for Justice, and People for the American Way---some of the leading groups we've worked with for years to secure voting machines. There are other groups that have long opposed the Holt bill because it doesn't ban electronic voting machines.

LIE—Common Cause, the Brennan Center for Justice, and PFAW worked AGAINST paper trails and then paper ballots for years on the basis that paper could not be made accessible to the disabled. These organizations have apparently never questioned why vendors refused to make paper accessible. Meanwhile thousands of grassroots activists pointed out to these organizations that a voting machine with invisible electronic ballots and no way to be audited was an obvious scam. Teresa Hommel of WheresThePaper.org taught computer programming to blind students 1979-1982, and these students handled paper as well as any other students. In the early 1990s Ms. Hommel taught computer programming to professional programmers and engineers, including some who were blind, deaf, or wheelchair-users. These professionals were competitive in their work and had no difficulty in handling paper.

MoveOn is a member-directed organization, so we have to make this tough call together. *Should MoveOn support the latest version of the Holt bill?*

... to allow for hackable, unsecured, unverifiable Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) voting machines along with a number of other problems.

That is what Debra Bowen "had to do" in California ... it is said that "something" got in her way ... some called it "reality", others called it a "sell out" ... but whatever it was that got in her way ... she was not able to perform in a vacuum where she was the only person on earth to do just exactly as she pleased.

Anyway, I was just watching Democracy Now! and an interview with a "real activist", an old timer Curtis Muhammad.

He pointed out how psyops worked in the "save the poor in New Orleans" movement, divided it, and turned it into a Mississippi Showboat.

So he wrote a goodbye letter to the "United" States, and headed south. I wish him happy paper trails.

No comprehensive understanding can be derived unless one understands why there are two versions of HR 811 (version IH and version RH), and why there is a S 559 twin in the Senate that also bears upon the issue.

Brad, you are mistaken that everyone is voting yes for HR 811 on the MoveOn poll. I didn't, and I've heard from at least one other MoveOn member who's also a member of another blog I participate in who voted no and encouraged all her friends to do the same.

Thanks for your quick response to the MoveOn letter. I am trying to sort through the information contained in Kathy Dopp's analysis of HR 811, to see if the current version actually solves the myriad problems it contained 6 months ago.

I really do wish that people could communicate with each other about this important topic without personally attacking one another, assigning questionable motivations, and making accusations that cannot be substantiated. Instead of getting to the bottom of the truth around HR 811, all this does is get people angry and make people defend themselves. What a friggin' waste of time.

Here's my letter to Noah Winer, in reponse to his poll letter:
I am encouraged to see that you hardworking and dedicated folks at MoveOn are reconsidering your previous stance re HR 811.

Re:
> The Holt paper ballots bill has met with strong concern from many disability rights groups because electronic voting machines offered many people with disabilities their first opportunity ever to vote independently. Some technology does exist to make paper ballots accessible, but not all disability groups feel it's adequate.
For any disability rights group to place a higher priority on a person with disabilities' ability to vote independently than it does on a person with disabilities' complete confidence that his/her vote is being counted and is being counted accurately is simply misguided.

Let's restore our democracy to something that's completely transparent and easy-to-manage by the voters. What electronic voting machines do is to make our democratic election process easy-to-manage by electronic voting machine companies. Anyone who's thinking clearly can see that this is antithetical to our democracy.

HR 811 needs to go back to the drawing board and either be revised or rewritten. The perceived sense of urgency that the supporters of HR 811 are using to push this bill through is ridiculous and dangerous. We have quite enough fear-mongering going on with the issue of terrorism. We don't need to introduce this ploy into the realm of our democratic election process.

The Holt Bill will make NO DIFFERENCE in many states. It fixes nothing for 2008 (except in a few paperless states). In fact in many states, the VVPAT is not public, binding in a recount, or even viewable by the public.

This Bill will obviously be changed when it hits the Senate floor, so who really cares?

It will not fix anything for 2008. It only introduces "audits" which will create a new cottage industry of "experts" and election specialists to get paid even more. First for selling machines, then for managing the voter database, then for machine maintenance, now they get a payout to do "audits".

By the way, the audits will consist of nothing more than barcode scanners and more use of the useless roll-to-roll paper audit trails.

Anyone who is pushing for Holt is looking to get in on the audit action and hoping for $$. Heck moveOn probably is applying for one of the grants for EAC studies.

I am trying to sort through the information contained in Kathy Dopp's analysis of HR 811, to see if the current version actually solves the myriad problems it contained 6 months ago.

It doesn't. Unfortunately. But if you have a question about it, I'll do my best to answer it. I have no interest in playing into the personal attacks that you are referring to, despite Ms. Dopp's bizarre fascination with such unconstructive attacks.

I'm always happy to have a legit discussion of the pros and cons of HR 811, even with those who disagree with my take on it (that would be our friend, Dredd! ). The personal attacks, however, are a waste of time and I've done all I can to try and get that message through to many in the EI movement. I've had better luck with some than with others, unfortunately.

It's a "friggin' waste of time". But that's true for any issue if the sources you read have no credibility.

A comment left on a blog by an anonymous blogger is not "reporting". Neither is a claim, such as the one quoted by Dopp, that is unsubstantiated (at least in reference to me).

As with anything, judge the credentials and credibility of the source. Most importantly: don't trust anyone. Including ME! I try to always include independently verifiable information for anything I report. I only wish that NYTimes, AP (and Kathy Dopp) did the same.

But you said you had questions about the bill specifically. Please let 'em fly, and I'll give you my best answer (one that will hopefully be independently verifiable!)

Thanks, Brad. You and I are on the same table as far as the "friggin' waste of time" factor, and I usually don't mind the less than totally intellectually honest harangues that sometimes go on here. I realize that, mostly, it's in the spirit of blowing off steam, and I do like that your blog is one of the more raucous ones around. Boisterousness is a good sign that a democratic, free nation is working in at least some ways. And election reform requires this.

We're at a junction here right now, with this Holt Bill. It's coming up for a vote. None of us will be able to think clearly and communicate sensibly with our reps on Capitol Hill, or with MoveOn, if our energy is going into addressing personal attacks and unsubstantiated accusations. I'm mostly frustrated with the pro-811 side, because way too many of them are trotting out arguments along the lines of this: "I find it hard to understand how any one can be fooled into leaving
the 2008 election wide open to vote fraud and possibly risk the deaths
of millions of people worldwide following another stolen US
presidential election, unless they care not one iota for humankind or
for honesty and integrity - but that's just me." That's not an argument ... that's a veiled threat.

Here is a partial list of some of the reasons I have given Rep. Woolsey to persuade her to not support HR 811. How have these problems been solved by the most recent version of HR 811?

What I find amusing and tragic about all these comments is THAT NO ONE Commenting has any REAl solution.

Amusingly enough, I do. Ban the DREs. Short of that, there are many options, some of which I've been working on behind the scene with legislators. So if you've bought into the "It's Holt or Nothing" canard, that you've purchased a bill of goods. One which includes a bounty for the voting machine companies, I should add.

Linda asked:

How have these problems been solved by the most recent version of HR 811?

Deceptive language: Still in the bill. Refers to paper trails (VVPATs) as "paper ballots" when the bill's supporters know that 90 to 97% of those "ballots" as created by DREs will never be counted by anyone or anything under the bill's current mandates.

unfunded or underfunded mandate: I'm not expert in how much money needs to be appropriate for what the bill requires, so I can't help you there. That said, word is that an "unfunded mandate" amendment is to be added to the bill, meaning (as I understand it) that none of the bill's provisions would actually be required, unless the funding was appropriated later. Kinda like Bush's immigrant wall across the Mexican border.

Scandal-ridden EAC: Yes, it helps to make it permanent and increases its power/mandate in several unchecked ways (there were several checked ways in which the EAC gained more power in the original language of the bill, including some language that I personally added. That has now been removed.)

Loss of secret ballots for the military: I don't think that provision has changed since the original. Doesn't take away secrecy for military ballots, as much as allow that secrecy to be taken away by not mandating that such ballots MUST remain secret.

Audit protocols: I'm no expert here either, and some *do* like the protocols as is. That said, it seems a bad idea to have flat percentages for a number of reasons, amongst them, makes it easier for hackers to know how much to hack. Also, the margins used to determine the percentage of the audits are determine from the (possibly hacked or incorrect) machines! Finally, auditing paper-trails (or VVPATs) on DREs means absolutely nothing since a) they can also be hacked and b) there is no way for anybody to know if the voter has actually "verified" them as accurate and c) two-thirds of voters, according to a recent Rice U. study, don't notice when their votes are flipped right in front of their face.

Machine count supercedes paper: Not familiar with that provision. Perhaps it was added late in the "PFAW Compromise" version?

"Machine count supercedes paper: Not familiar with that provision. Perhaps it was added late in the "PFAW Compromise" version?"

This is a reference to intermediate versions of the bill where all a bad actor had to do was mess up enough paper printouts -by any method overt or covert- to theoretically compromise the election and then the election officials could toss out the paper altogether and declare the (rigged) machine count the only valid count.

To counter this criticism later versions had the following text appended to that section:

"... a sufficient number of the ballots have been so compromised that the result of the election could be changed, the determination of the appropriate remedy with respect to the election shall be made in accordance with applicable State law, except that the electronic tally shall not be used as the exclusive basis for determining the official certified vote tally."

Holt and company have occasionally improved the bill in spots... now if only they would stop taking three steps back for every step forward...

I kept hoping after the 2004 election that the election would not be certified - in light of all the inconsistencies especially in Ohio. I can't remember, but was Conyers the only one challenging the election?? I would think every candidate running would take particular interest in HAVA, and corrupt voting machines - they spend so much time and money for each vote, to have thousands of votes wiped out with a couple key strokes. What is the computer literacy of legislators who probably don't know where the "ON" button is on a computer and we are asking them to vote on legislation when they probably don't have a clue what a tabulator is! Here is Florida we are fubar'd again! The last I heard, all recounts are to be done on guess what --- yes, machines.

One blogger on this thread said that Stalin put on perfectly good paper ballot elections. My research and common sense tell me that it could have happened.

Another blogger said that as long as the establisment process can pick the candidates and the issues, as Stalin did, then the type of election process does not matter as much as movement evangelists proclaim it to matter. Those proclamations tend to be a bit paranoid.

In a Stalinist election voting is no more than a front, the voters being gamed all the time, because it is not who votes or how they vote that decides, it is who counts the votes that decides.

I posted some research yesterday that shows we, in the US, used to use beans and corn as ballots. Perhaps that is where "bean counter" and "corny" came from .

And before that, in the purportedly sophisticated Greecian democracy, rocks were used as ballots.

But the main factor for fear in elections is not paper, rock, bean, electrons, or corn ... it is human beings in power.

Fear of the effect that unbridled power has on people is not paranoid:

Orwell savaged the totalitarianism of Stalin's Russia in ... "1984." ... MI5 had already been watching Orwell since 1929, when he was a struggling journalist in Paris, attempting to write for left-wing publications ... In 1942, Orwell drew police interest again while working for the Indian service of the British Broadcasting Corp. A report by a sergeant named Ewing of Special Branch, the British police intelligence wing, said Orwell had "advanced communist views, and several of his Indian friends say they have often seen him at communist meetings."

(Even Orwell was Spied On). Our movement has been compromised by division, so we must exercise and teach tolerance for ideas for and against Holt, Nelson, and every other bill, then we will destroy the psyops now working the movement.

Note that my use of the word tolerance does not mean that I think tolerance is capitulation of one's opinion. It merely means not demonizing fellow laborers in the movement because they have different opinions on some bill.

Nor do I mean we should tolerate brazen falsehoods like "EVM's are totally secure and can not be hacked because this is American democracy".

PS: Thanks for the "raucous" and "Boisterousness" comments. Your check is in the mail .

Needless to say such efforts at independent citizen oversight were anathema to Holt's backroom politicking and the Holt Noise Machine roared non-stop... EI activists who couldn't be bought off were (and are) top targets. But we keep on. Here's talk about a later version of the bill.

As for EI activists who could be bought off... Kathy Dopp stands out. Especially given the fix she's gotten herself into now. And Linda... my posts in this regard do not fall under the heading of "accusations that cannot be substantiated" for Dopp was very public in her sudden buyout. Here's where I first learned about it.

And a further bit of grim humor... the California Post-Election Audit Working Group study that shows that she sold out the EI community and was sold out in turn by Holt and company... all for nothing. Dopp's fixed-ratio audit methodology has flaws that allows the audit to be gamed and the election to be tracelessly hijacked.

And for another non-Dopp point of view here is well-known EI activist Nancy Tobi running through the standard "Holt flaws" checklist for the next-to-latest version (I think)... yep, it's still a colossal fiasco in the making... and yeah, dealing with the nonstop deception of Holt and company seems to have left Nancy a little on the snarky side

No. HR 811 needed serious disussion and modification before it got anywhere near a vote and it seems that Holt just didn't want to discuss these bothersome little details... at least he seemed very reluctant to discuss them with anyone that didn't represent the power- and money- of a corporation or a traditional big lobbying group.

And now HR 811 must be voted down before it does severe damage to our democratic process.

I'm always happy to have a legit discussion of the pros and cons of HR 811, even with those who disagree with my take on it (that would be our friend, Dredd! ).

I have disagreed with you for calling Holt a liar, for censoring me while not doing so to others who agree with you on Holt who call me a liar, and for supporting other admins here who do the same to me.

I have not said I am supporting Holt or not supporting it, because any such movement will fail on any federal legislation intended to impact 2008.

Instead, my debating has been about the language in the bill and what the language means, using American law to interpret the text. It is a fundamental and prerequisite exercise, and a necessity.

I have criticized the lack of the use of professional interpretive techniques, which would have been recognized by those in the know.

When there is no agreement to what the text says and means, it is axiomatic that there can be no coherent "for" nor "against". No coherent discourse, just ad hominem blah blah blah passing in the darkness of cacaphony.

Old timers like me, who were doing time for activism before some here could talk or write, see a pattern that is unmistakably the sign of movement infiltration:

I started organizing when I was eighteen in Mississippi in 1961, and I lived a good ten years inside of movement activity ... And most activists probably think this[Katrina activism] is business as usual, that the kind of stuff we do, a demonstration here, a conference, a workshop there, but have no real understanding of what a movement looked like, and how an enemy deals with a movement ... So when this thing happened with Katrina, it was just so ugly, and it reminded me so much of the COINTELPRO era of the ’60s, that we began to talk and try to show young people what was going on ... I think it has an external agenda. I think that that work that our government did in the ’60s to destroy the organizations of that era, I don't think that work ever stopped. And I think we've got to discover how they control us, how they keep us acting like reformists and liberals ...

(Interview of Curtis Muhammad by Democracy Now!, emphasis mine). The strategy to "divide a movement into fighting factions so you no longer need to fight that movement yourself" is psyops 101.

To which I agreed in my post #3, pointing out that movement heroine Debra Bowen had to do the same. Add another ingredient:

The Chinese military hacked into a Pentagon computer network in June in the most successful cyber attack on the US defence department, say American ­officials.

The Pentagon acknowledged shutting down part of a computer system serving the office of Robert Gates, defence secretary, but declined to say who it believed was behind the attack.

(FT, emphasis mine). Some in the movement would demand that the Pentagon remove all the computers and replace them with paper memos.

I think you get my drift. That demand, like demanding the replacement of computerized voting systems because they can be hacked, has a prayer's chance in hell of getting anywhere but on the gadfly party's blog.

What does in theory have a chance is securing a system by incremental improvements.

Such as voting system source code open to the public, no external communications on voting systems, archival quality paper ballots generated for each individual voter, no conflict of interest by election officials, and good chain of command practices concerning ballots and equipment (an incrementally more secure Pentagon computer system too).

This is, I think, a great discussion now. I'm going to link up some of my friends and bloggers to it who are asking for real information, not just, you know, the other stuff.

Zapkitty, thanks for the clarification on the roots of your statement re audit action, $$, and grants for EAC studies.

Here's the bottom line for me, as someone who's been following this as best as I can, basically from the sidelines. I think it rests with the pro-811ers to show that this is a good bill and that it moves us in the direction we need to be heading. In my opinion, this has not happened.

Almost every single pro-811 argument contains words to the effect that "even though the bill is less than perfect after committee attacks, it is the best we have," or "HR 811 is not a perfect bill," or "while the bill is far from perfect..." There is just no reason for our legislators to approve a bill with these defeatist comments attached to it. I believe that Americans in general, and we who are closer to this issue in particular, can and should do way better than this. Our elections are just too messed up right now, too problematic, for us to move ahead with legislation that is referred to over and over as "less than/far from perfect." We need a piece of legislation we can be proud of.

On this topic of imperfect legislation, I find it interesting that the pro-side uses this fact to advance the bill's necessity. I've read over and over in comments that many pro-811ers feel that BECAUSE our elections system is so messed up right now that we should go ahead and adopt a far from satisfactory piece of legal framework. So anyone out there who reads this and is revving up their motors to come get me on this point, be warned, I don't share your view that this is a productive or even necessary way to move ahead.

Here's another problem I'm having with the pro-811 side. The sense of immediate urgency for this bill to be passed now, before it's "too late," before "another election is stolen," a sense of urgency that's being stoked by using that old fear-mongering ploy that we're all real familiar with right now, and that's gotten us into a heap of big-time trouble all over the planet, is just so offensive. And it makes for incredibly poor decision-making. Haven't we learned this by now? I guess not, and this particular human/national shortcoming in our collective psyche is oh so disappointing.

And then there's the problem I'm having with pro-811ers in general attacking the motives and intelligence of anyone who isn't on their bandwagon. I realize that this is coming from all sides, but it bothers me in particular with the pro-811ers, because the onus is on them to show that this bill is a keeper. As a member of the audience here, I have to say that I think that (mostly) everyone involved is doing a terrific job in their own right and on their own time. When I read an accusation of the type I'm referring to here coming from someone, I immediately focus on that someone, and not on the object of the attack. As the parent of an adolescent, and as someone who's spent a lot of time refereeing childhood disagreements, I'm so sorry to see this level of argument going on in this important arena, the arena of election reform.

Now, I realize that these reasons I've stated for not supporting passage of 811 do not address any of the specifics. I don't think I have to do that here, because I think they've been addressed in several of the above posts. I'm not going to repeat them.

The onus of showing that HR 811 is a bill that we should all encourage our legislators to support rests with its supporters. They have not convinced me, and they have given me a lot of reasons to not trust their motivations, intent, statistics, or even their basic fundamental premises. I believe that my letter to Rep. Woolsey yesterday, the most recent of so many that I have lost count, accurately reflected my opinion of this bill, and I hope she votes no on it, whenever it comes before her for a vote.

Imagine the 2008 election results are in. In a tight race, our next president is determined by a few hundred votes in a swing state like Pennsylvania—where the electronic voting machines have no paper record whatsoever. Who really won?

This week is our last chance to stop this nightmare scenario.

What if the race for the White House is decided by a few hundred votes cast on paperless voting machines? Today is our last chance to stop this nightmare.

If H.R. 811 is defeated in the House, our next president will be decided by paperless electronic voting machines.

"If H.R. 811 is defeated in the House, our next president will be decided by paperless electronic voting machines."

Talk about mindless...

I take it then that the MoveOn heads have somehow failed to notice the spate of recent studies showing that DRE "paper trails" are, perforce, as worthless as the e-voting ballot counts that spawn them?

Zapkitty, MoveOn is not promoting Hr 811 on its merits. It's promoting Hr 811, because in its shoddily written and presented (oops, I mean poorly-worded) "poll," its respondants were 72% in support of its poll (oops, I mean in support of HR 811, as it was presented to its members in said poll).

VERY interesting thread. I have been especially juiced reading up on DREDD's activist past; I often wonder and worry about those of you that have seen this same fight (and so many others) re-emerge from the same cabal YEARS after so many hard-won battles. I'm feeling practically wolluped from just one revolution of this tyranny.

I, too, am disgusted with MOVEON as they fail to follow up on voter rights issues while they peddle and push their silly petitions for everything else under the sun. Even after I went carpel tunnel LIMP from typing them letter after letter re: MY UN-ELECTED CONGRESSMAN VERN BUCHANAN, they continue to send me missives and actions that end with "Call or write VERN today and tell him how YOU feel about (insert issue du jour that is willfully ignored by politicians, here.)"

I keep insisting that he ISN'T my elected representative, and until they DO something about voter rights issues, they would be facing a stacked deck on every issue without the first restoring integrity of the vote. Sigh. Another foray into the dark abyss of MOVEON correspondence...

Noah--
Are you insane? What's the matter with MOVEON? Don't you know that my UN-ELECTED representative, VERN BUCHANAN, was ELECTED on those fraudulent machines? DO YOU THINK HE's GOING TO SUPPORT THIS DISASTEROUS BILL in the first place? HOW CAN YOU CONTINUE TO IGNORE ALL THE EXPERTS ON THIS ISSUE??? I capitalize without apology; my screaming at you is reflective of a frustrated voter who feels utterly ignored (even betrayed) by you.

You continue to write to me, urging me to contact a representative that STOLE an election to tell him to help us stop them from STEALING ELECTIONS!

And with a terrible, un-American bill, to boot. Even Rush Holt himself has admitted this bill is unrecognizable. PLEASE MOVEON--you are letting down the MOVEON members in Sarasota Florida and elsewhere every time you spread misinformation about this bill. Stop it. Withdraw your support. Do the right thing.

I have disagreed with you for calling Holt a liar, for censoring me while not doing so to others who agree with you on Holt who call me a liar, and for supporting other admins here who do the same to me.

When Holt said, as he did, that "By November 2008, every voter would be given a verifiable paper ballot" if his bill was passed, he knew that was a lie.

I've spoken to him personally about these matters, and he knows he's not telling the truth when he makes the claims above. I'd not called him a "liar" until that article (very recently) as it came on the heels of Bowen's study which showed in no uncertain terms that the "paper trails" Holt has been fighting for would not keep an election from being hacked. Further, his audits would not either. IF DREs are allowed for use. (See the Brennan Center's study).

Enough is now enough. I've been very very polite to Holt throughout. But when he said that in the wake of Bowen's study, all bets were now off.

I've not censored you and, in fact, have given you far more leighway that are given to most commenters. I do my best to keep up and warn and/or remove comments that personally attack other commenters. If I missed one from someone, please let me know via private mail and I'll be happy to handle it. I've shown no favoritism to those who agree with me versus those who don't. Given the number of words you've posted here (which I welcome), I think it proves my point.

Finally, you may wish to go back and find my response to you concerning the definition of "paper ballots" as used in the Holt bill. You may have missed my response, and my point that you, or any other lawyer, would be welcome to bring a case to enforce your definition of "paper ballot" if/when Holt is passed. But it'd be a longshot for success at best.

The EI movement does agree on what the Holt bill does and doesn't do. Though some less than honest players like to spin things in a way they know is neither true nor accurate.

Every honest player knows that Holt's bill does *not* require "paper ballots". Period. The fact that MoveOn, Verified Voting and VOteTrustUSA were willing to come out today and endorse Davis' attempted ban on DREs only underscores the point.

I think the best part of HR 811 is the light it shines on the election activist community. Now we can view the bogus activist groups in a bright light- PFAW, Common Cause, Verified Voting, MoveOn etc have now all been outed as complicit or ignorant. We know corruption permeates the government, but few realize the extent to which the black hats have gone to infiltrate our activist ranks. Now that Microsoft has been busted for manipulating standards bodies vote counts, the gloves should officially be off. For the activists,fund raising agendas coupled with bad advisors may be the underlying element- or maybe it's even darker than that.

When conducting an investigation, a good idea is to start at the end and work your way back. Carnivore and Choicepoint seem to be obvious but are not mentioned by activists. Take a look at the DNA database collection efforts.. - CB

FACT: HR811 as it used to be written would only help some states with no paper trails for 2008.

FACT: DRE vendors will not have to change anything or even fix their printers. They will only sell more DREs with VVPAT

FACT: A VVPAT is not a ballot and is not durable (as implemented by Diebold and ES&S). In many states the VVPAT is not public and is essentially secret.

FACT: 2008 will become 2010 or 2012 as soon as the bill shows up in the Senate.

FACT: Audits as written in HR811 will result in more election cost and push counties to buy barcode readers and essentially computerize the paper trail in the first place. Anyone saying Holt introduces useful audits or paper ballots is a liar.

It makes shoddy paper trail VVPAT and legal nightmare audits a permanent part of elections in ALL states instead of just places like Ohio.

I am sorry to see, dear Brad, that you continue along a path that will destroy the possibility of election reform affecting 08 coming out of this Congress - but I do note that is the result desired by the GOP and such "election reformers" like Bev.

PFAW, Common Cause, Verified Voting, USCountvotes, and MoveOn have actual experts in various fields advising them - do you have a math degree, statistics background, election reform experience in other countries? No, you have those that would kill the bill by yelling "paper only" - ending any chance for audited elections in 2008. Kathy Dopp actually knows what she is talking about - you I'm afraid, do not.

I actually hope I am wrong - that a ban on DREs will pass and the bill with that ban will make it intolaw.

However I am fairly certain you and your cohort have killed election reform, keeping the door open to another stealing of an election that requires no more effort that that used in 2000, and 2004. It would have been nice to have a few new Obstacles to any theft - but I now expect we will not. Congratulations.

Papau- The DRE issue is a red herring- That band-aid would do nothing to stop the secret software code. As long as you have the central tabulator under the control of the vendor- you lose. Since the first count is the only one that matters- we need to get it right. Audits are good as a possible deterrent, but the experts in audit have not shown themselves to be "first count" savvy- Same for PFAW, VV, CC, MO etc..... None of them pose solution. They only confuse the movement. Cartel

Dopp is a political idiot who sold out election reform for a mess of pottage... and for her trouble was sold out in return by Holt and company...

Why does Kathy still support a bill that's been associated with nonstop deception by its promoters?

"paper trails" have been shown to be absolutely worthless by several recent studies so Holt falsely relabels them as "paper ballots"... even though they are not required to each be counted... ever...

Seizure of control of state election mechanisms by the ever-undying EAC... even though Holt specifically claims (lies) that the EAC extensions have been removed from the text... and that the bill "does not speak to the EAC extension"

(Well, since the originally temporary EAC becomes a permanently funded federal regulatory agency in the bill I guess you really could say that "the extensions have been removed"...)

BTW... only those whom the government has deemed "qualified" will be allowed a peek at the source code... after they sign a corporate-mandated nondisclosure agreement for the life of the "Trade Secrets"... (which in corporatese means well beyond the lifespan of the average human)... with this same said lifelong corporate Sword of Damocles being backed by the full penalties of law.

can disclose technology and information to another person, if and only if that person or entity is a government agency responsible for voting,

(The people put in power by e-voting code)

a party to litigation over an election

(Got bucks? Got lawyers? No bucks, no lawyers... no source code)

or an academic studying elections.

(Fatal software vulnerability uncovered by grad student!... 6 years after the election...)

HR 811, Holt's Fiasco, is a disaster waiting to happen for a variety of well-defined reasons... and Kathy Dopp wants you to vote for it because Holt put in her fixed-ratio audit protocols and bought her off. That would be those same fixed-ratio audit protocols that are shown to be trivially gamed by yet another study from the California Secretary of State.

The very first version of Holt's original bill from the previous session was worthwhile... but the current ever-mutating corporate-funded montrosity nicknamed "Microsoft 811" currently under discussion has only served to block and delay any meaningful election reform legislation.

And paupau... the latest proposed "unfunded mandate" amendment to the bill will block any enforcement of what few real pro-voter provisions are in the bill from being enforced for years....